ANTHONY CAMPAGNA ESTATE 640 West 249Th Street, the Bronx
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Landmarks Preservation Commission November 16, 1993, Designation List 255 LP-1887 ANTHONY CAMPAGNA ESTATE 640 West 249th Street, The Bronx. Built 1929-1930; architect Dwight James Baum. Landmark Site: Borough of The Bronx Tax Map Block 5914, Lot 315. On June 2, 1992, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a public hearing on the proposed designation as a Landmark of the Anthony Campagna Estate and the proposed designation of the related Landmark Site (Item No. 3). At the request of the owner, the hearing was continued to December 8, 1992 (Item No. 2). Both hearings were duly advertised in accordance with the provisions of law. At the two hearings, there were eight speakers in favor of the designation and none in opposition; the then owners took no position. The current owners have not taken a position on designation. DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS Summary The Anthony Campagna Estate was built in 1929-30 in the Riverdale section of the Bronx as the home of this prominent Italian-born New York City builder and philanthropist. The work of Dwight James Baum, a leading New York City architect praised for his carefully conceived and executed suburban and country residences, the house is modeled after Italian villas, an unusual prototype for New York City. The elements of the landscape design, by Ferruccio Vitale, an Italian-born landscape architect, and his partner Alfred Geiffert, Jr., were also based on Italian prototypes, in keeping with the design of the house, and won the 1934 gold medal in landscape architecture from the Architectural League of New York. The design of the house and grounds, on a site overlooking the Hudson River to the Palisades, is one of Baum's most impressive and is a major example of 1920s architectural eclecticism by a recognized master of the genre. Thus the Anthony Campagna Estate is a major example of the integration of house and setting, virtually unparalleled for its period in New York City. In addition, it takes its place among the large estates that have distinguished the history of Riverdale over the past century and a half, competing in size and magnificence with the most lavish of its predecessors. Anthony Campagna 1 him the title of Count of Castelmezzano, bestowed Anthony Campagna (1884-1969) was one of by King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy in 1930. Manhattan's most prominent developers of Given Campagna's devotion to the culture and apartment houses during the 1910s and 1920s. history of his native country, it is not surprising Born in Castelmezzano, Italy, Campagna took a that when he decided to build himself a new home law degree in Naples and then immigrated to the in the Riverdale section of the Bronx in 1928, he United States. After working in Chicago, first in would choose the Italian villa as a model and journalism and then as a lawyer, he moved to New select a highly successful architect who specialized York in 1909 to work for the construction firm of in historical styles. Paterno Brothers, apartment house builders. After Dwight James Baum3 marrying Marie Paterno, Campagna formed his own company, the Campagna Construction Dwight James Baum (1886-1939) was one of Corporation, and continued successfully in the the most productive and successful architects same line for several decades. working in historical styles during the early decades of this century. Born in Little Falls, New Campagna's most active period as a builder York, he studied architecture at Syracuse coincided with the enormous boom in apartment University, graduating in 1909. He opened his as house construction that followed World War I, own office in New York City in 1914, establishing large apartment houses sprang up in many areas of himself as a talented and versatile designer. Manhattan, particularly along Fifth and Park avenues on the East Side and along West End Baum designed a number of public and Avenue and Riverside Drive on the West Side. institutional buildings, including several at Campagna became involved in the acquisition and Syracuse University, Syracuse Memorial Hospital, redevelopment of major sites in both areas. His the Federal Post Office Building in Flushing, company built a number of large prominent Queens, and the West Side Y.M.C.A. Building on buildings on Fifth and Park avenues, including 960 West 63rd Street in Manhattan (located within the Fifth (Rosario Candela and Warren & Wetmore, Upper West Side/Central Park West Historic 1929), a "luxury" building with apartments so District). He is best known, however, as a large they were comparable in size to private designer of suburban homes and country estates. houses;2 and 173-175 Riverside Drive (J.E.R. The geographic extent of his practice varied from Carpenter, 1926), occupying the entire blockfront Newport, R. I. , where he designed a villa for between 89th and 90th streets. Count Alphonso, to Sarasota, Florida, where he built John Ringling's mansion, "Ca' d'Zan," and As he became successful and wealthy, maintained a satellite office in the late 1920s; Campagna turned to philanthropy. Most of his however, the majority of his residential efforts were directed to institutions in Italy or to commissions were in the New York City area those in New York with Italian connections. He including the Hammerstein House, a designated helped raise funds for the restoration of Virgil's New York City Landmark. In 1923, he received tomb in Naples, and for a Roman tower in the Medal of Honor from the Architectural League Minturno. He made contributions to the Italian of New York "for the simplicity and charm of his Historical Society in Rome, and for the residential work. "4 excavations of Roman ruins at Herculaneum. In New York City, besides serving as a director A master of architectural eclecticism as it was without pay of a city school construction program, practiced in the 1920s, Baum was adept in a wide he donated a site at Fifth A venue and 106th Street variety of styles, though his own preference was in 1929 to the Italian Hospital (never built because "American Colonial. "5 A 1927 monograph on of the Depression) and played a major role in the Baum's work categorizes his houses by "types": creation of the Casa ltaliana at Columbia Colonial, Formal Georgian, Italian, English (i.e., University (the structure was built by his firm). Tudor), and Dutch Colonial. Matlack Price, who His work on behalf of Italian institutions earned 2 wrote the brief text, explained the meaning of the in other parts of Riverdale including the Thomas word "type," using the Italian villa as an example: A. Buckner, Jr., residence at 5200 Sycamore Avenue in what is now the Riverdale Historic A typical Italian villa could be found District, and such non-residential projects as the only in Italy. When we adapt the local firehouse, the Christ Church Parish House, type here, as a rrwtif, or manner of and an extension to the Riverdale Presbyterian design, rather than as a style or Church. rrwdel, we depart from the original in a great many ways, and build a Baum's Riverdale houses are carefully sited on house which in plan, in methods of landscaped plots. Depending on their style they construction, in materials, and in are faced in clapboard (Colonial), brick interior equipment is as different from (Georgian), stucco (Italian), or local fieldstone. an Italian villa as it is from an Their facades are romantic compositions of the Eskirrw 's igloo. Notwithstanding details appropriate to the chosen type: columns, which, it is perfectly intelligent to piers, capitals, porticoes, fanlights , chimneys, call it a house of the Italian type, Palladian windows, eyebrow windows, gambrel since the Italian villa was its point of roofs. According to architect Mario Campioli; departure. The same designation, who worked as a draftsman in Baum's office: based on the same sequence of "After talking to a client, [Baum] had a fixed idea thought, applies equally to our in his mind of the house he wanted to do, and he'd American adaptations of any other draw the elevation and then try to make the plan European style. 6 fit it. "8 For houses with large sites, Baum This approach would be embodied two years later carefully planned and designed gardens and outbuildings. in Baum's design for the Campagna house. The Campagna House: Baum's mastery of traditional styles was An "Italian Villa" in Riverdale praised by the modernist architect Harvey Wiley Corbett, in a preface to the same monograph: Riverdale, the section of the Bronx in which Campagna built his Italian villa, was incorporated It is only the exceptional architect into the city of New York in 1875 and developed who has the force of will and the in the mid- to late-nineteenth century as a adventurous spirit to roam through picturesque suburb of villas for well-to-do all styles and all periods and make Manhattan merchants and financiers . When fifty himself master of them all. And it years later Campagna, who was already living seems to me that this is the signal elsewhere in the neighborhood,9 decided to build achievement of Dwight James Baum on West 249th Street, Riverdale still retained much in the realm of domestic architecture. of its atmosphere of country estates nestled into the He has had the spirit and the guts to woods overlooking the Hudson. Campagna's site tackle Colonial, Georgian, Italian, was located directly across from Wave Hill, the Tudor, etc., and to emerge in every first Riverdale estate which itself dated to the early case with banners flying. 7 1840s, and was surrounded by other large houses Baum lived for much of his professional life in and estates.